


The Accident

by weezly14



Series: Time Loop [3]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Gen, Rose's POV, Time loop fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-01
Updated: 2014-03-01
Packaged: 2018-01-14 03:31:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,678
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1251148
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/weezly14/pseuds/weezly14
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An outtake from the APWWOSG universe. The accident and aftermath, from Rose's POV.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Accident

**Author's Note:**

> So, I'm off tumblr, and I've been really bad about posting stuff there and here, so I'm gonna work on fixing that. By uploading the time loop outtakes/one shots on here, in no particular order. 
> 
> Enjoy.

It all happens very fast, and there’s none of that life flashing before your eyes nonsense. Just a lot of noise and pain and the feeling of being swept off your feet and then—

            It all goes black.

\---

            It’s pain and bright lights and everything is moving and people are talking but she can’t understand the words and—

\---

            She’s moving, they’re moving her, and it _hurts_ and why won’t they just leave her alone and why and—

            _Doctor_ —

            And—

            _Where is he?_

            And—

\---

            She feels trapped inside her mind. She can’t open her eyes and she can barely feel anything but numb and static and sometimes she hears voices but she can’t quite understand the sounds and—

\---

            Sometimes she hears her mum.

            Sometimes she hears him.

            She tries to respond but she _can’t_.

\---

            He doesn’t say much. She doesn’t listen to the words; it’s more the sound of his voice. It’s soothing but nothing is more soothing than his hand around hers and sometimes he squeezes it and she _tries_ but she _can’t_ and—

            She misses him.

\---

            It’s like her ears pop, like suddenly she can hear again, like suddenly everything makes sense again, and she can’t open her eyes and she’s so _tired_ and—

            “I love you.”

            And her heart twists and he squeezes her hand and she’s been trying to communicate with him and she tries again and—

            And she does.

\---

            It’s in and out. Sometimes her mind is awake and sometimes she “sleeps” but she feels like she’s done nothing but sleep for—

            She wonders how long it’s been.

\---

            She wakes up and she’s really, properly waking up, and it’s so bright and everything begins to come into focus and she can feel a hand around hers and she sees him and she smiles. She has no idea how long she was out, how long he’s been sitting here, waiting for her, but she smiles because however long it’s been she’s missed him and she loves him and she squeezes his hand and the smile on her face kills her a little bit. He looks like he’s showered and shaved recently but there are bags under his eyes and he’s looking at her like she might disappear and she wants more than anything to make that look go away.

            She’s not ever leaving him.

\---

            The doctors and nurses come in and fuss and she tries to speak and her voice is scratchy and her mum and Pete come in and there are tears and he doesn’t leave her side. He just sits in his chair and watches her and she just wants to curl up with him and go back to sleep but that’s not an option right now.

            The doctors start talking again and that’s when his gaze shifts away from her, and he doesn’t let go of her hand and she lets herself watch him as he listens.

            His hair doesn’t look longer than she remembers, nor does it look recently cut, so she can’t have been out more than a few days. There’s a spot of blood on his neck where he cut himself shaving, and that looks new, and she wants to reach out her hand to touch it but she doesn’t. He looks tired. Even in profile he looks exhausted, and he’s not the most tense she’s ever seen him but near it. She squeezes his hand and he lets out a soft sigh and relaxes a little—only a bit.

            He’s not wearing a tie and oxford. It’s a t-shirt and jumper today, a jumper she’s borrowed a few times, warm and soft to the touch. She wonders if he put any thought into the outfit when he got dressed, or if he just picked it up off the floor and threw it on. Yeah, that sounds about right.

            She’s not even pretending to listen to the doctor but he is, and he nods and asks a question and she’s not listening to the words so much as to the sound of his voice and he’s stroking her hand with his thumb.

            The doctors leave and her mum is talking to her and she responds but she’s tired and she wants him to say something but he doesn’t, he lets Jackie talk, and then Pete drags Jackie away and it’s just them.

            He kisses her hand and she nearly starts crying. She wants to ask him how long she was out. What happened. She wants—

            “Hi,” he says softly, with a small smile.

            “Hi,” she responds. His smile widens a bit and her heart flutters and she loves him.

            “I love you.”

            And she knows. Of course she knows.

            “I love you, too.”

            But sometimes it just needs saying, anyway.

\---

            They don’t let him stay the night, and he starts to protest but stops himself, sighs deeply, tension returning to his shoulders, and says,

            “Fine.”

            The nurse shoots him a look and leaves, and he gets up from his chair and squeezes her hand once more.

            “I’ll be back in the morning.”

            “I know.”

            He leans down and kisses her and she doesn’t want him to go. He pulls back slowly and she knows he doesn’t, either.

            “I love you,” he says, and they say it often, it’s not like—but it still sends a happy jolt through her, and she can’t help the smile she gets every time he does.

            “I love you,” she echoes, and his smiles slightly but he still looks so sad and she wants him to stay but he can’t. He releases her hand then and heads for the door, pausing to look back at her before he leaves.

            “Good night.”

            “Night.”

            And he’s gone.

\---

            He comes in early every morning, sitting in his chair beside her bed. Sometimes he talks to her, sometimes he reads to her, sometimes they watch telly. He always holds her hand.

            Pete tells her what happened. Jackie’s gone to fetch Tony to come see her, and the Doctor’s getting food from the cafeteria for them all, and she asks him what happened.

            “Car accident. Hit and run. Haven’t caught the driver yet.”

            She’d known. She remembered enough but—it still hits like a ton of bricks.

            “How long was I out?”

            “’Bout 4 days.”

            _Oh, Doctor_.

            “I’m sorry,” she says, and she has no idea why she’s apologizing. Pete shrugs her off.

            “You’ve got nothing—” He stops. “Just glad you’re all right, sweetheart.”

            He kisses her forehead, and it’s such a dad thing, and he—he’s never been much of a dad, to her. He’s her mum’s husband, her brother’s dad, her boss. She was 18, 19 when he and her mum got together. He didn’t raise her. She calls him her stepdad and they’ve never been particularly close, but—

            She smiles tearily at him, and he’s got tears in his eyes, too.

            She’s thankful, not for the first time, for Pete.

\---

            “Not that I don’t love having you around, because I do, but. When are you heading back to work?”

            He shrugs and keeps his eyes on the telly.

            “Doctor.”

            He looks at her then.

            “What?”

            “You should go back to work. And school. You’ve missed—”

            “I’ll be fine.”

            “Doctor—”

            “I don’t—I don’t want to leave you.”

            And her heart twists, and she reaches out to stroke his face. He hasn’t shaved the past two days, and she likes the feel of the stubble beneath her fingers. He looks tired still and she hopes he’s sleeping, but—

            “I know, Doctor. But still. You can’t just—”

            “I’m fine.”

            “Doctor. You can’t just sit with me here for the new few weeks.” He looks hurt, almost, and she rushes to explain herself. “Much as I’d like you to—I want to make sure you’re okay, too. The doctors say I’m healing up, I’m—”

            “Rose—”

            “I’m fine.”

            “But—”

            “You’re gonna fall behind.”

            “Rose—”

            “I’m not going anywhere. I’m all right. I’ll still be here when you get off work,” she says. He looks like he wants to argue still but she brushes his lips with her thumb to stop him. “You won’t drop out for me, you hear? I won’t let you.”

            He sighs, and she knows she’s won.

            “I’m coming here straight after work, and class,” he tells her.

            “You better.”

            She smiles at him and he returns it, if a bit tightly, and she rolls her eyes and grabs him by his tie, hauling him up to meet her for a kiss.

            “I love you,” she says against his mouth.

            “I love you, too. So much.”

            His eyes are still too sad.

            She kisses him again.

\---

            True to his word, he goes back to work. She spends the time without him sleeping, mostly. Usually her mum will visit while he’s away (she understands that they like their time together and tends not to visit when he’s there), or Shireen or Mickey or Jack will stop by.

            Sometimes he brings his work with him. She’ll read and he’ll work on a problem set and it’s almost like being at home except she’s stuck in a hospital bed, hooked up to machines, and he’s in a chair by the bed, not sitting on the couch with her arm around her. But it works. It has to.

            Sometimes she catches him just watching her, and the bags under his eyes don’t ever go away and she misses him. Misses falling asleep with him and waking up with him and cooking breakfast with him and going for adventures with him in the blue car. She misses how happy he used to look. Even now, whenever he looks at her it’s tinged with fear and sadness and she wants to ask, what those days were like, what he did, how he’s feeling.

            The nightmares didn’t start right away but they happen often enough and she wants him to comfort her but they won’t let him stay the night and she won’t tell him because there’s nothing he can do. Nothing but torture himself for something that isn’t even his fault.

            But she’s recovering. She’s getting better. And he’s _here_ , as often as he can be. By her side, holding her hand.

            She’s not sure if he’s the marrying kind. She just knows that trials like this tend to make or break couples, and he’s done nothing but make it abundantly clear that he’s not going anywhere.

            She doesn’t often think of marriage, but if she were ever to marry anyone, she knows it would be him.

\---

            One day she makes him laugh and everything’s a little brighter afterwards, a little lighter. It feels like hope.

\---

            They don’t talk about the accident. It seems like a thing they should do. She’s talked with her mum. Pete. Even Tony. But the Doctor won’t bring it up and she doesn’t want to, either. She’s not entirely sure she wants to know, honestly. They’ve both lost people in their lives but he—

            She doesn’t want to ask him to relive it.

            One day he’ll tell her. Until then, she’ll wait.

\---

            It’s not like he was a disaster before they met. Yes, he was a single man living alone, but he wasn’t living in squalor, and obviously he’d gotten by fine without her all those years. But she liked taking care of him. She got the feeling that no one had for quite some time, and there was a particular sort of joy to making him breakfast, bringing him coffee on the weekends, folding his laundry along with hers. Even before they were together, when he’d gotten sick, she’s immediately known—she had to go over and check on him. Feed him soup and check his temperature and make sure he was all right. He got by fine without her but—

            She _wants_ to take care of him.

            It’s strange to have their roles to reversed—not that he hasn’t been taking care of her since day one as well. But now she’s stuck in a hospital bed and he spends all the time he can with her. If she wants water, he jumps up to get her some; if she fidgets too much he fixes her pillows. He takes it to a bit of an extreme but she doesn’t tease him for it. He takes care of her without complaint and with utmost sincerity and she loves him for it.

            “I’m gonna pop downstairs for a candy bar, do you want anything?” he asks. She shakes her head. “You’re sure? Because I can—”

            “I’m sure.”

            “Okay.”

            He gets up and starts to go but she catches his hand before he does.

            “What?”

            “Come here.”

            He steps closer and she grabs his tie and he smirks and meets her for a kiss.

            “Love you.”

            “Love you, too.”

            “Thanks for taking care of me.”

            “Always.”

\---

            After weeks— _weeks_ —in the hospital, she can finally see the end. Only a few more days. Her mum and the Doctor have been arguing over who she’s going home with. She doesn’t know why he’s still fighting; obviously he’s going with her wherever she goes. Her mum’s not the hospital staff, she won’t keep him from staying over (and if she tries Rose will most certainly not just let it go).

            He’s less tired, less tense than he has been, but she still wants to just hug him and tell him it’s okay, to rub his back and assure him that everything’s all right.

            He kisses her goodbye every night before he goes and in a few days she’ll be home and she won’t have to say goodbye to him and she can’t wait.

\---

            “I’m bored,” she tells him her last night at the hospital. He looks amused.

            “You only have one more day here, and then you can go home.”

            “Have you all agreed then?”

            He sighs and doesn’t respond.

            She wants so many things and she’s stuck in this stupid bed but only one more day, and she wants to make the look on his face go away. She hates seeing him so upset.

            “You’ve got bags under your eyes,” she says, bringing a hand to his face. “Why aren’t you sleeping?”

            “I am, I just—I miss you,” he admits, and her heart hurts and she smiles.

            “I miss you, too.”

            And she doesn’t often think of marriage but—

            “I love you.”

            “I love you, too.”

            And she almost lost him. She almost died, and he—

            The nurse comes by and lets him know it’s time for him to go and he sighs.

            “I’ll be back in the morning,” he says, standing.

            “I know.”

            He leans down to kiss her, soft and sweet.

            “Good night. I love you.”

            “Love you,” she says, kissing him again. “Try to get some sleep, yeah?”

            He straightens up and nods. Shrugs on his coat. Goes to leave.

            “Doctor?”

            He turns back to look at her and _one more day_ and—

            “I’ll be home soon,” she tells him, and he smiles a bit. She watches him go and she already misses him.

            She can’t even imagine what it must’ve been like for him.

\---

            He brings her a muffin in the morning and helps her get dressed and she’s still a little unsteady on her feet but he helps her, holds onto her, doesn’t let her fall.

            She kisses him and thanks him for the muffin, saying, “And it’s not even Thursday,” and he says, “Well, you’ve missed the last few,” and it’s nothing against her but it stings all the same and she looks away.

            She feels guilty for doing this to him, for making him—for putting him through this. After everything he’s been through, she nearly went and left him, too. He’s always so scared—had always been so afraid of letting her in and then he did and she almost died and it wasn’t her fault but she wants—

            She wants to take care of him and protect him and help him heal all the broken parts of himself, and how can she do that when she—

            “I’m sorry,” she mutters.

            “Don’t—I wasn’t—you have nothing to apologize for.”

            “I scared you.”

            “You can’t help that,” he says, running a hand through his hair.

            “No?”

            “I’m in love with you, Rose. I’m always going to—things can always happen and I will always—but that’s not on you.”

            He looks at her a moment and then pulls her into his arms and _God,_ she missed this. She wraps her arms around him and buries her head in his chest and she can feel him taking deep breaths, can feel his heartbeat through his layers and it’s comforting, it’s a nice reminder. He’s real and solid and _here_ and she’d forgotten what it felt like to be held like this by him. She’s never felt safer.

            “I’m sorry,” he whispers into her hair.

            “For what?”

            He shrugs a bit, and she knows him, knows how—

            He’s tensing up again and she looks up at him and presses her lips to his. His eyes slide shut and he returns the pressure and when she pulls back from the kiss she buries her head in his chest again.

            “It’s not your fault,” she mumbles against his heart.

            She knows he doesn’t believe her, so she presses a kiss to his chest. He pulls her a little closer, and she smiles.

\---

            He drapes an arm over her and curls himself around her and she sighs contentedly.

            “I love you, Rose Tyler,” he says with a kiss.

            “I love you, Doctor.”

            And he really has no idea how much, does he?

\---

            It’s the best night’s sleep she’s had since before the accident.

\---

            She wakes up before him, which, actually, isn’t that rare an occurrence. When there’s no alarm set she usually wakes up before him, and it’s nice, actually. She likes to watch him sleep. Likes to watch him wake up. Likes to get up and start breakfast or do whatever.

            Today she doesn’t get up, though. She just watches him. He looks peaceful. Calm. Relaxed. She hasn’t seen him like this in a long time. She’s glad he’s sleeping. He’s needed it.

            She can’t get over how—and she’s realizing—the way he looks at her now—it’s not new. It happens more frequently now. But it’s not new. And she can’t help but wonder _why_. Where it comes from. If he’s always been like this, with everyone, or if it’s different with her.

            And it’s strange, because while he knows about Mickey, about Jimmy Stone (after the incident at the dinner, after things had settled and they went back to normal, she brought it up again. Told him more about what all had happened, and he’d just listened intently, holding her. Told her he loved her)—she knows nothing, really, about his dating past. When they met he had no one, really. And she knows he’s friends with Donna and Donna’s boyfriend Lee, that he’s friends with Martha, that he talks to Rory and Sarah Jane when they come in, but—

            When they met he had no friends, no family. No past, almost. Except he _does_ , he must, he just—and admittedly, he’s gotten much better at talking about it. He’s so much more open now than he had been when they first started talking, when they first started dating. But he’s never opened up about his romantic past. She knows he must have one. And it’s not important, really. She doesn’t need to know like he did. She just wonders, sometimes, if the way he is with her is the way he’s always been, in relationships, or if he’s different. She supposes it doesn’t really matter. Whatever happened in the past, he’s here, now. He’s with her, now. Whatever happened—

            If there ever was anyone, though, whoever she was—he must’ve lost her, too. Probably in that whole—when he lost his family.

            It would make sense, anyway.

            She watches as he slowly starts to wake up. Watches him go from peaceful to tense in the seconds before he opens his eyes and sees her. He was on his back but he rolls onto his side, facing her, his hand coming to rest on her side. The tension starts to leave him and he rubs his thumb in small circles. Ever so careful. He doesn’t say anything, but he looks more rested than he has in weeks, and he has that look on his face again, and—

            “Can I ask you something?” she whispers.

            “Anything.”

            “You look at me sometimes like I might disappear. Like you might never see me again.” He nods slightly. “Why?”

            “You almost died, Rose,” he says, and she almost wants to just let it go, move on, give him a kiss and talk about other things, but she _wants_ to know this one thing, and she has a feeling that in this moment he would answer anything she asked.

            “You did it before, though. I didn’t understand it, then. Didn’t recognize it.”

            He averts his gaze, and the hand not on her side reaches for hers. It’s been lying on the bed, waiting for him to take it, and he does. He twines their fingers and she holds her breath, almost, waiting for him to respond. He’s so fragile in this moment, which is almost funny because she’s the one who was in the accident and yet—

            She thinks she’s always known, but it hits her, then, that he has always been the more fragile on the two of them. In this relationship. She loves him, so much, can’t imagine—wouldn’t want—but he _needs_ her, in a way she doesn’t quite need him. And maybe once that would’ve scared her but it doesn’t, now. She loves him, her lonely, scared Doctor, with all his demons, all his scars. She knows he would do anything for her, knows how much he’s taken care of her these past weeks. In this respect, he needs her. He needs her to hold his hand and soothe his fears. So of course she will.

            “I know what it’s like to lose everything,” he says finally. He’s still not looking at her, his gaze instead fixed on their fingers. It breaks something inside her, to see him like this.

            “You’re not gonna lose me,” she tells him, and she knows as well as he does that she can’t promise him that, not really—the accident has done nothing but throw into harsh relief how much control they _don’t_ have, how easily they could lose everything. But he doesn’t need to hear that right now, and that’s not really what he’s talking about, is it?

            “Doctor.”

            He looks at her this time. _God_ , she loves him. And she hopes he believes her. She can’t stop the universe from splitting them up, can’t stop accidents like this, but she _can_ —she can promise never to leave him. Not willingly.

            “Promise?” he says, small and scared and hopeful all the same.

            She closes the distance between them, brings her lips to his.

            “Promise.”

\---

            The first time she has a nightmare after they’ve arrived at her mum’s he wakes her up out of it and she can’t stop crying and he sits up with her, rocking her back and forth and not letting her go, whispering soothing words in her ear until she calms down again.

            He never asks what they’re about, which is just as well because she has no desire to rehash them afterwards. Whenever it happens he always wakes her out of them and stays up with her until she falls back asleep. After a while, they stop happening so often.

            He never does go back to his flat, except for more clothes. He moves in, and if her mum’s unhappy about the situation she doesn’t comment. Rose isn’t quite sure what she expected. Before the accident they spent nearly every night together. She thinks she sort of thought he’d stay some nights, but go back to his flat sometimes, too. not that she wanted him to leave—of course she wanted him with her, always. But she knew he—he got so weird about some things, and she figured living with her mum would be one of those things he’d avoid as much as possible. But no. He stays every night.

            “I love you,” she says one night as they’re falling asleep after a nightmare interlude.

            “I love you, too,” he says, fitting himself behind her.

            “Thanks for staying with me.”

            “Of course.” He kisses her neck. “Nowhere I’d rather be.”

            At least three nights a week they’re up in the middle of the night because of her nightmares. He takes her to physical therapy every week, sitting in the waiting room and doing his school work. (Jackie had offered but he’d insisted he be the one to take Rose.) She wouldn’t blame him if some nights he stayed at his flat. It’d be easier for him to get his work done; he’d get more sleep. But she knows that when he says there’s nowhere he’d rather be, he means it.

            She doesn’t think often think about marriage, but when she does, she wonders if he’s the marrying kind.

            More and more, she hopes so.

\---

            Slowly but surely, he begins to open up more. Tell her more about those four days he spent in the hospital, when they weren’t sure she would make it.

            He tells her about how he didn’t sleep, not until Pete made him go home. About how he didn’t leave until then, either. About how he’d sit with her, talk to her. She’d known that. She remembered—not the words but—the feel of his hand around hers, the sound of his voice.

            She asks him what he said, and he doesn’t say anything, and maybe that’s an answer all on its own.

            They went from not talking about it to talking about it sometimes, slowly. He’s never been an open book (and yet in some ways he always is), but he’s getting better. He talks more. He shares more.

            He looks less and less everyday like he’s afraid of losing her.

            She calls it progress.

\---

            The doctors clear her and they leave her mother’s and go to his flat and it’s like nothing happened, like before the accident, sitting on the couch with him, watching telly, bickering over Chinese.

            At one point they start wrestling over the remote and suddenly she’s on top of him and his eyes are dark and she’s sure she’s flushed and she’s missed this and she kisses him partly to get the remote and partly because she just wants to and he does drop the remote but by that time neither of them care about what’s on telly.

            She’s going to spend the rest of her life with this man, and she almost doesn’t even care if he ever gives her a ring.

\---

            He tells her one day, after he’s proposed, after the wedding, after they’ve moved into their own home, that that’s what he said when she was in the hospital.

            At first she’s not sure what he’s talking about.

            “You asked, once, if I talked to you, after the accident. Before you woke up.”

            “Yeah.”

            He shrugs like it’s not a big deal.

            “Well, that’s what I said.”

            “You proposed while I was in a coma?”

            “I didn’t—not that, exactly. I just—I said, I told you. I was going to. I told you I’d been looking for a ring.”

            He’d told her he’d been planning to even before the accident, but this—

            “Why’d you tell me, then? Why not wait?”

            He shrugs again. “In case you heard. So you’d know—so you’d want to wake up.”

            “Oh, Doctor.” She pulls him to her, and he rests his head in the crook of her neck. “I love you.”

            “Love you, too,” he mutters against her skin. “I’m glad you woke up.”

            “So am I.” She presses a kiss to his hair. “I wouldn’t have missed this for the world.”


End file.
